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Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Last month I showed you my “woman’s world” collection of
representation of women at work from all over the world.

We can’t leave the guys out, so here is my other shelf
representing the world of men.

Yes, ‘men have different rules’… thank goodness!!

The photo is one I took as Himself (far right) and his team
mates were coming back from a HALO jump.They call this their “Right Stuff” picture.

This is a Native American carving from Alaska.I believe the body is carved from Alaskan jade,
the face is fossilized ivory, the hood is a bit of fur, and the drum is a slice
of caribou antler.

Another Native American piece from Alaska.This one is carved from a bit of driftwood.

This is a small (very small) Kachina doll.He is Hopi made but not one of the exquisite ceremonial
style.

The next two clay sculptures are from Mexico.

This sweet little boy with the bird makes me smile…

… as does this mischievous pair with the burro.One little guy has a cactus spine in his
foot.

These are Maasai items.They represent the warrior age-set called the Moran.They are from our visit to Kenya.We sponsor a Maasai boy thru Compassion
International and hope that he will finish school before he takes off for his
time as Moran.

On one of our US trips, I surprised Himself with a stop in
Dyersville, Iowa at the “Field of Dreams”.It was a fun stop.We bought the
baseball at one of the gift shops (the baseball field is actually owned by TWO competing
families… each with their own gift shop!).We had a game of catch, which is how it got so scuffed up.There really is a corn field there and
Himself picked up a few kernels lying on the ground in the outfield.

We’ve had a lot of fun collecting our ladies and gentlemen
over our various trips.

Sunday, July 29, 2012

When I came back from my recent trip to Missouri, I had
company with me.Mom came down to spend
a few days, with Dad coming down later in the week.

We made it total “chick time”!

Starting even as we left for Tennessee, we stopped for lunch
at an old family favorite: The Hotel Ste. Genenieve.On Sundays they serve a “family style”
menu.You choose your meat (Mom had
their roast beef which they call ‘kettle beef’ and I had the fried chicken)
which comes with mashed potatoes and gravy.Then everything else is served all-you-can-eat.The sides are sauer kraut, green beans, their
special dressing with rice in it, and liver dumplings.Those dumplings are THE reason I was
there!!!I took my fried chicken home in
a carry-out and had dumplings for my protein.

Other stops on the drive were at the peach orchard I visited
in June, a TJ Maxx store, and a frozen yogurt shop.

The next day we just chilled out, visited, and cooked good
food.

On Tuesday we got moving!A trip to Nashville was in order with shopping and a seafood class at
Whole Foods (I’ll blog that later).

We stayed local on
Wednesday with a trip out to “Amish land” to visit shops, a bakery, and farm
stands.

At my favorite farm,
we bought some apples that we got to pick ourselves.

Lunch was at my favorite sushi restaurant.

Dad came down on Thursday so we just did a bit of shopping
in the morning.I grilled for supper…
porterhouse steaks and a swordfish steak I picked up at Whole Foods.None of us had ever had swordfish, so it was
fun to try.Our sides were from the
produce stand we visited the day before… green beans, baby potatoes, and
absolutely ripe tomatoes.

Friday we all headed down to Nashville in the late afternoon
to have dinner at Caffe Nonna (http://caffenonna.com
).The restaurant owned by the guest
chef at the Italian cooking class Himself and I took this spring. It was FABULOUS!!!And it was fun to see Chef Dan again.

All too soon it was Saturday morning and time for my parents
to head home.

Friday, July 20, 2012

Wanted to share with you all this opportunity to view a
great (possibly) meteor shower.We’ve
gone out to watch this one before and the fireballs are fantastic!Weather permitting, it is one that is worth
trying to see.

I’m going to be stretched out on my chaise on the deck for
this one!

“July
23-30 - Capricornids - From comet Honda-Mrkos-Padjusakova, these are bright
yellow meteors with many fireballs!This
is a terrific year for these meteors to be seen and enjoyed, since the moon
will be in quarter and gibbous phases and in the sky during evening and until
after midnight from July 28-31 for the duration of this activity; the radiant
for these meteors is very low in SE sky at dark and south of overhead for
mid-northern latitudes by midnight; best chance for the best meteors will be
after about 1:30 a.m. local time when the dark side of the earth will be
turning directly into the path of the meteor stream.Even in moonlight this can be a spectacular
shower, so this year - with a bright troublesome moonlight in the sky - sleep
early and observe late!”

Sunday, July 15, 2012

I decided that for my birthday I wanted to do a bunch of my
favorite things.I was up and at it by 6
am.I had to factor in a stop at the DMV
to renew my driver’s license (opps!) but that process went quickly and I am
happy with my photo too!

In the days before I made a list of my favorite things that
I could do on Firday.From that I a plan
for how to spend my day.

Here’s my list and what I did:

Philanthropy

I am involved with many different charities trying to
influence the world for the better.The
very first thing I did was to get on my laptop and fund into two loans thru
Kiva.I’m still using the capital from
my year long investment several years ago.

On the left is “Sal, age 55, lives in a village about twenty
kilometers from Phnom Penh City. She is widowed with three married children:
two live separately, and another one still lives in the family's home. Sal is a rice farmer. She is applying for a
loan in the amount of $1,000 to buy seeds, fertilizer and pesticide to maintain
her rice farm. She will also use a part of the loan to build a restroom for her
family to use.

And on the right is “Saliya is 52 years old; she is a widow
and has six children. Saliya does animal husbandry which is the main source of
income for her family. She started this business with the purchase of a milk
cow. Through her hard work and perseverance Saliya now has four milk cows with
calves and 0.43 hectares of land where she cultivates potatoes. Her monthly
source of income from the sale of milk and dairy products is 12,000 som (KGS).
With a goal to further grow her animal husbandry business Saliya has come to
Bai Tushum and Partners for a loan in the amount of 60,000 KGS to buy milk
cows. She plans to invest the income from the loan into growing of her business
by building a large shed for the cattle.”

Junking

The ReStore is one of my favorite “junking” places.(Himself calls all of my yard sales/charity stores/curb
finds my “junking stops”.However, he
does like the stuff I make with my finds!)I also made a stop at Goodwill.I’d
hoped to do a few yard sales too but the on and off rain canceled most of
them.I did find several things I needed
to do or finish some projects so it was a good thing!

Shopping

I like shopping (mostly looking at) things to decorate or
fix up my home.Some of my favorite
places to shop in Clarksville are Home Goods/TJ Maxx, Pier 1, and Lowes.I made a visit to each one of them on
Friday.Got some good ideas but didn’t
find much of anything I wanted to bring home (sadly, the Clarksville TJ Maxx is
just a cluttered, pitiful mess).

Produce Stands and Farmer’s Markets

We live in an area with a fairly large Amish and Mennonite
population.There are a lot of farm
produce stands and at the end of this road is one of my favorites.I have several in a circuit that I will visit
when I want fresh produce.

Eating Out

My breakfast treat of the day was donuts at Shipley’s where
I had my favorites – a sugar yeast donut and a chocolate icing cake donut.They are so good.

And I ended the day with some sushi for dinner.My favorite place in town is Fujiyama and
they know me well there!LOL This is the
owner Tony finishing my platter (lobster roll and a veggie roll).

Cooking

I had to come home for a bit I the middle of the day, and
while I was home I cooked up a nice lunch with of some favorites.I made pan seared scallops, baked sweet
potato, asparagus, an artichoke, and a Caprese salad.The cake I picked up at Publix.

Photography

I brought my camera with me and while I was out in the country
I was able to do some shooting.This
hopeful pony was at one of the Amish farms I stopped at.

Spending Time With Friends

I ended the day enjoying a frozen yogurt with Best Friend
and family (the youngest was out doing his own thing and will probably be irritated
to hear he missed out on a trip to Berry Bear!).

It was quite an excellent day… the only reason it wasn’t
perfect is that Himself wasn’t here to share it with me.

Friday, July 13, 2012

Two years ago I posted a blog about the 50 things I would
like to do before I turned 50… and I did 14 of them.

Those things I accomplished are:

Learn to make
jewelry chain

Won a
photography contest

Wrote a child's
book for the babies

Traveled to
Shiloh National Battlefield

Raise my own
vegetables

Make a compost
pile

Come up with my
own hamburger

Create my own
cheese cake

Create my own
pasta salad

Create a
signature dish

Came up with my
own potato salad recipe

Learned to make
sushi

Do an acceptable
water color painting

Own a Clan Hanna
tartan cape (amended to shawl)

And I am well on my way on these two:

Read the Bible
all the way thru

I bought a “Bible on CD” set and I am listening to it.I’ve done the entire New Testament and have
gone thru most of 1 Chronicles as of last night.I love having it for my long drives up to
Missouri… that’s 4 hours of listening!

In fact, there have been a whole lot of changes in my relationship
with God… in a very good way.

Get organized

I have made great progress with this one.Enough that I know it will really and truly
happen.I’m almost done with
decluttering and organizing my shed; even as it holds things moved from my
hobby room/office as I remodel it.So I
have two “works-in-progress” happening and it all looks a bit chaotic right
now.It’s all good!

Only finishing 14 of 50 could have been a sad thing.Could have, except for the fact that along
the way I learned to finally throw my lists to the wind and accept all the
incredible things the Lord has blessed me with.And those things came to a number far higher than 50!

Learned
to make cheese

Learned
to make a blown glass float

Took
a series of mixed media classes

Put
in a large herb garden

Completely
remodeled a room in our house (hall bathroom)

Learned
to felt

Learned
to make wire wrap jewelry

Learned
to make stamped jewelry

Learned
to do wheel pottery

Gone
to a "sea glass beach"

Became
a DOTING Auntie (as opposed to just ‘being an aunt’ which actually would be
something my sister did!I was already an
aunt when I wrote my list.I never
dreamed what those two little people would do to me.Those babies OWN me…and I love it!)

AND I did one thing that I had said in that blog was “Of
course there are the ‘dream’ things – travel to Scotland,… I know those are not
realistic.”

I went to Scotland!!

And that brought some many experiences I had never dreamed I
would do:

Purchased
a length of hand-woven Harris Tweed from its weaver

Visited
the land of my Scottish ancestors: Colonsay Island and Sorbie Tower, Galloway

Traveled
thru the Highlands

Been
'monster hunting' at Loch Ness

Take
a falconry course

Handled
a Bald Eagle

Have
eaten haggis and black pudding.

Have
eaten REAL fish & chips.

Photographed
a wild Red Stag.

Rode
on a steam train.

Rode
on a double-decker bus

Rode
in an old fashioned 'cabbie' taxi

Slept
in a lighthouse

Slept
in a castle

Slept
in a converted church

Stayed
a week in a private beachside cottage

Driven
on the 'wrong side of the road'

Walked
the Old Course at St. Andrews.

Been
on the "Falkirk Wheel"

Had
a picnic on a beach

Walked
thru ancient standing stones (the Callanish Stones on Lewis)

Eaten
at a world famous restaurant (Three Chimneys)

So that is my 50 Before 50 list.Two-thirds of it never even crossed my mind
two years ago.It’s been a great journey
with so much learned.I’ve learned to
learn what to let go and what to keep close to me.

I’ve learned that you have to realize “Prince Charming” isn’t
real but you can still “live happily ever after”.It’s not a fairy godmother’s magic wand that
makes it happen; it is a lot of hard work and commitment… especially when you
are tired of working hard and keeping the commitment.

I’ve learned to cut myself a break and realize I don’t have
the strength or stamina of my 25 year old self.But give extra time and a few assisting tools, I can do everything I’ve
ever been able to do.I just have to do
it smarter.

So today I start my ‘Fabulous Fiftieth Year’… and I already
know it’s going to be a great one!

About Me

Hello and welcome! This is where I share a little bit of my adventures I have in this big beautiful world. The sweet babies I’m holding is my niece Little Bird and nephew Little Hoss. She turned 3 in August and Little Hoss was 2 June. They are one of my adventures… I’m an auntie now. Oh the fun we’ll have!
I am also a wife, a Christ follower, a traveler, a cook, a photographer, a student of new and interesting things, a mini philanthropist, and a pursuer of dreams.